Nick Anstead (LSE) and Ben O’Loughlin will tomorrow present at an event, Twenty20 and the Future of Cricketat Royal Holloway, University of London. Their paper, entitled, ‘Media, identity, and the co-escalation of political and cricket controversies’, examines how media framing of Twenty20 cricket provides a framework for players, administrators and audiences to think through the political controversies associated with two shifts in balances of power. The first shift is one of format, from test match cricket to T20 as ‘the future of cricket’. The second is one of power, as the game’s administration gravitates from England and Australia to the emerging geopolitical power that is India. Based on analysis of Indian, UK and Australian media, they ask whether each nation’s media frame T20 as a different kind of media event (in Dayan and Katz’s terms) – of potential sporting contest, political conquest, or tradition-affirming coronation – and how this impedes or enables a sense of shared destiny among cricket-playing nations.

With the Cricket World Cup beginning in India on Saturday, this should be a lively and timely discussion of globalisation, sport and media, with participants from the BBC, Cricinfo and the International Herald Tribune amongst others. Thanks to Prof. Chris Rumford for organising the event.